Taiwan Company Buys Seattle's Sheridan Bldg. For Possible Mixed-Use Development

by Mike Meisenbach

The Puget Sound Business Journal reported that a Taiwanese company bought the old Sheridan Apartments building in mid-January, likely with the intent of eventually developing the property for mixed-use.

On Jan. 15, Chainqui Development purchased the Sheridan Apartments, a 57-unit multifamily residential building in the Belltown district, located at 2011 Fifth Avenue, and the acquisition included the adjacent parking lot. Aram Properties of Seattle was the seller.

I've also written not long back about how mixed-use architecture is on the increase in Seattle and other cities, but it's not always getting a glowing endorsement from urban denizens. It'll be interesting to see what Chainqui decides to do with this building, and whether it's well-received by locals or not. I note that the footprint occupied by the building and parking lot are actually not all that large, making me really wonder just how much "mixed-use" can they incorporate? They might mean that they'll have streetfront shops and offices/apartments above, but that barely seems to qualify as all that "mixed" in my book.

One could hope that they'd choose to create an entirely underground parking garage, and make it so that the current parking lot space becomes an adjacent park. This would add to the greenspace, and help to improve the look and feel (not to mention property values) of the entire area. In some cities, developers have presented development projects as mixed-use, obtaining approvals by representing that the building will add to a city's green space -- and then subsequent to completion, that green space is essentially inaccessible to the public.